This is going to be a long trek…and guess who’ll be carrying almost all the food? You guessed it – Mama (me). The girls are old enough and strong enough to carry everything else they’ll need, but I’ll have to shoulder all the food weight. Since we can only resupply a few times during our thru-hike, I will sometimes have to carry five+ days of food for three people. Since I can’t get around the necessity of carrying a lot of food, I’ll have to shave pounds off our gear. This means replacing almost everything we now own with ultra-light versions of…well, everything. I’ll also need new hiking shoes, and the girls will need new shoes and clothes (kids grow too quickly!). This is where The Clymb comes in. There’s no way I can afford to pay full price for every piece of clothing and gear we need to buy. Thankfully, The Clymb offers top quality, name-brand gear for insanely discounted prices. For example, they’ve got a Lafuma sleeping bag on sale right now for $64.98 (the regular price is $120)—that’s the same brand the girls and I have used on every camping trip we’ve ever taken. That’s over five years of backwoods camping – plus, we recently used our Lafumas on the Camino. Good stuff. Another example – footwear. The trail runners I used on the Camino are (understandably) falling apart, so I’m about to purchase the boots I’ll use on the John Muir Trail. The Clymb has the same stuff I’d get at REI, EMS, or Lahouts…but at theclymb.com, it’s all 40-80% off the usual price. Merrells, Vasques, Garmont, Keen – the inventory is excellent. I currently have my eye on the Hanwag GTX, but I’ll let you know what I eventually decide to buy.

So…over the next few months, I’ll be purchasing upgraded gear for me and the girls. I’ll get what I can at theclymb.com first (why pay full price if you don’t have to?) – whatThe Clymb doesn’t have (ultralight tents, for example), I’ll purchase elsewhere. Stay tuned – I’ll start posting the details of our gear list next week. In the meantime, donate what you can to Feeding America!

6 comments:

So excited for you! we spent 7days walking through some of the Ansell Adams wilderness a few years ago, since then the JMT is on my list to complete (finish with mt Whitney) one day, I love that it seemed there were resupply options every 4 days along the trail with a short walk to the local PO to collect packages of food if needs be...enjoy planning! I hope the fundraising goes well!

Trish - you probably follow Sierra and Heather's blog but if you didn't see this review of the ULA backpack - it's a good one:http://sierrapct.blogspot.com/2013/05/gear-review-packs-tents-and-more.html

I know the feeling of carrying food/gear for many - my kids aren't quite able to carry much at all.

Looking forward to following your progress. You might check out Henry Shires tarp tents too - we love them - have 2, a 2 person we used on the AT and 3 person now - I'd love the 4 person.